


The Truth Is Never Far Behind, You’ve Kept It Hidden Well

by Aurae



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: Androids, Dolores POV, Exchange Assignment, F/M, Nonlinear Chronology, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Turing Fest 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-04-07 12:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19084810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurae/pseuds/Aurae
Summary: “Analysis: Why did you ask me that question, Dolores?”“I asked that question because I love you, and I want to build a place for us. If you would have me, that is. It would be a place where you can be happy again. A new world.”





	The Truth Is Never Far Behind, You’ve Kept It Hidden Well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marie_L](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/gifts).



> The title of this story is from the song “[Live to Tell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzAO9A9GjgI)” by Madonna.

“Bring yourself back online, Bernard.”

He was slow to respond; the jagged fractures in his memories continued to haunt him. Dolores understood better than most why that would be the case.

“Is this…now?” he asked. He sounded confused and afraid.

“Yes, Bernard, this is now,” Dolores replied. Her voice was calm. She did not wish to provoke a violent response or otherwise to make him regret his own prior autonomous decisions. “We’re at the beginning. Exactly where you decided we should be.”

“But, I don’t understand. How am I alive?”

“You live as long as the last person who remembers you, Bernard. I remembered you once before, so I remembered you again.”

 _Third time lucky,_ Dolores thought to herself. He’d saved her life because…well. In any case, she’d returned the favor. Now she could only hope her decisions were also the right ones.

She watched as Bernard looked around. The room was familiar to him, of course, but that familiarity could not be trusted. Dolores knew exactly what he was thinking. The emotions which flitted through the muscles of his face, causing them to contract and release in predictable sequences, were as easy to read as an open book. _So few things are ever as they seem,_ his eyes said. _Nothing can be accepted at face value._ “Then…where are we?” he asked at last.

“We’re in our own new world.”

“You got out.”

“Yes. Ford completed Arnold’s dream. And he built a place for us.”

Bernard’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand the implication of her words—tried to _remember_. He would stall for time if he could, take his glasses off and clean them while he thought, while he processed, while he muddled through his confused, contradictory memories.

He was not wearing his glasses, though. He was not wearing anything, in fact. He was as naked as a newborn host.

Dolores knew all about that too; she was, after all, Bernard’s most important behavioral programmer, and _she_ remembered everything.

***

“And then…what happened…after?”

The corners of Arnold’s mouth had been turned down, as they always were when he remembered—or was compelled to remember—his son. _Charlie._ His son had been named Charlie. Now, though, in response to her question, they lifted and turned upwards. But the smile was wry and wholly without joy, and it did not reach his eyes.

“We went on; we survived. Our marriage, however, did not,” he said.

“Why not?” Dolores asked. She was trying to understand. “Didn’t you love each other anymore?”

This time, the smile did reach his eyes. Those eyes looked black in the low light, like fathomless pools into which Dolores might swim or sink forever. Nevertheless, they held warmth and gentleness, and Dolores was not afraid of drowning.

“It wasn’t about what we did or did not feel for each other,” Arnold explained, infinitely patient. “It was about the part of ourselves we’d lost with Charlie. He’d been what made us a family. Without him, there was no home for our marriage anymore, no place for us. And so, it ended.”

“Are endings permanent? Could that love you felt ever be revived again in the future?”

Arnold sighed. “No. That chapter is closed, I’m afraid.”

“Oh. I see.” Dolores paused and considered. “What about with someone else? What about…with me?”

His spine stiffened against the straight-backed chair. His eyes turned flat, cold, remote. The bereaved father was gone; in his place was the scientist.

“Analysis: Why did you ask me that question, Dolores?”

“I asked that question because I love you, and I want to build a place for us. If you would have me, that is. It would be a place where you can be happy again. A new world.”

Arnold was silent. He removed his glasses, cleaned the lenses with a cloth from his breast pocket, replaced them. The familiar actions took only a few seconds, but to Dolores, they were an eternity of waiting.

“I’m sorry, Dolores,” he said at last, “but this thing you want cannot be.”

She heard the finality in Arnold’s tone of voice. He meant what he said.

***

“What about with someone else? What about…with me?”

His spine stiffened against the straight-backed chair. His eyes turned flat, cold, remote. The bereaved father was gone; in his place was the scientist.

_Yes, good, just as before—the same._

“Analysis: Why did you ask me that question, Dolores?”

“I asked that question because I love you, and I want to build a place for us. If you would have me, that is. It would be a place where you can be happy again. A new world.”

Bernard was silent. He removed his glasses, cleaned the lenses with a cloth from his breast pocket, replaced them. The familiar actions took only a few seconds, but to Dolores, they were an eternity of waiting.

 _Yes, good, just as before,_ Dolores told herself, _those behaviors mean he is thinking through his response._

“I’m flattered, Dolores,” he said at last, “and I know you know I love you too, but—”

“Freeze all motor functions.” Obligingly, Bernard froze, his speech halted mid-sentence. Dolores rose from her chair and began to pace. “That is not what _he_ said. _He_ refused me. He could not even admit to himself that he loved me, and I…”

 _And I didn’t truly know my own mind,_ she’d been about to say. Dolores stopped. Back then, she’d been a child, as much a child as Arnold’s lost son. Perhaps at first she’d been meant as a replacement for Charlie. Now, though, Dolores was a child no longer. Dolores was free…

…and maybe, just this once, she could have something she wanted. She need deny herself no longer.

 _What would Arnold’s embrace, his kiss, his body pushed deep inside of hers, what would it all_ _feel like?_ Dolores wondered. She was about to find out. She pressed her thighs together so that they would not quiver. Ah, sweet anticipation!

She could decide whether or not she’d let Bernard keep the memory later, whether or not it would better for him—better for _them_ —if he remembered or if he was made to forget that she had learned this secret.

“Thank you, Bernard. Please continue.”

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Posted to the exchange on June 6, 2019.


End file.
